New Zealand

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We set off driving up north early so didn’t get chance to walk on Takapuna beach after all. We’d started worrying that we’d already spent three nights in Auckland and we were going to be pushed to see everything in five weeks.

We started on the motorway before moving off onto a small coastal road. Being in a van is amazing as it means you can go where you like, when you like. We stopped off at Langs Beach and enjoyed a walk along the sand. The weather had brightened up and there were actually some brave people in the sea. At one point, we saw a young guy drop his clothes at the entrance to the beach and run naked (except for his baseball cap) all the way to the sea and dive in headfirst. Now that’s what I call brave. A minute later he was sprinting back across the sand again hoping that nobody had nicked his clothes!

We stopped off at other beaches on the way up (including Waipu Cove where they had the most amazing public toilets!), and enjoyed short walks in the spring sunshine on each of them. The coastline is amazing here and there is just so much scenery to take in. It’s frustrating that we only have 34 nights in NZ as it means we’ve got to rush around trying to see as much as we can. We have to keep reminding ourselves to stop and look around before rushing on to the next sight.

In late afternoon, we arrived at Whangarei Falls campsite. It was lovely - really small and clean with a pool, hot tub, tv room and library. The lady running it was from Birmingham so we had a good chat as she showed us around. The waterfall was literally just next door to the site so it was in a perfect location.

When we settled in and ate a late lunch we realised that we were exhausted so decided to stop and catch up on some internet things like the blog and emails for the rest of the afternoon.

Having a van is great as it means we aren’t tempted to eat out for every meal. Going out for dinner would mean taking the van out which seems like far too much hassle so hopefully in that respect it should save us some money.

We had another feast of chicken curry and beer and then tried to plan where to go next.

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